[KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?

[Dr. Edward D. Rockstein]

I'd suggest that for those concerned with "similarities," that you start by reading this brief article on genetic relationships [of languages] in Wikipedia. 

One of my Japanese colleagues at Indiana University 40+ years ago who was working on Khitan or Jurchen, I forget which, explained to me [I am a language user not a linguistic analyzer] that it was useful to start from the point that similarites in languages can stem from either forces of divergence [from a common source, i.e., genetic relationship] or convergence [owing to imposed influence such as captivity, cultural swamping, etc.]. His view, as I understand and remember it after all these years, was that the Eastern Turkic languages and the Mongolian languages bore similarities to Korean as a result of convergence. I tend to agree with that view [Roy Andrew Miller notwithstanding], but this is not my bailiwick. 

After teaching for two years in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Indiana, I spent three years there teaching in what was then the Department of Uralic and Altaic Studies, now called Central Eurasian Studies. Many of my colleagues then were specialized in linguistics.  A number of those, as I recall, did not subscribe to the Altaic Theory.

Dr. Edward D. Rockstein 

ed4linda at yahoo.com   

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse--Adlai Stevenson


--- On Mon, 5/28/12, Henny Savenije <webmaster at henny-savenije.pe.kr> wrote:

From: Henny Savenije <webmaster at henny-savenije.pe.kr>
Subject: Re: [KS] Is Korean an Altaic language?
To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Date: Monday, May 28, 2012, 9:47 AM



In response to Henny's comment,
note that Eugene's question was not  concerned with simple
"similarity"  but with language families.


It's my understanding that similarities indicate families, and the closer
the similarities the closer the relationship. 


the Indo-European family is quite large but has all kind of sub divisions
like Germanic, Romance and so on. For most Germanic language speakers
Romance languages aren't that easy to learn and vice versa but Germanic
speakers have a relative easy time learning other Germanic (and I
definitely don't mean German here) languages. 


 
                
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Henny (Lee Hae Kang)

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